


The Darkest Hour (comes right before the dawn)

by Sanctuaria



Series: Celebrating AoS Season 7 (with angst and hurt/comfort) [6]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Heart-to-Heart, Hurt/Comfort, empathic abilities, episode 7x04, mama may, philindaisy, season 7, season 7 spec fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:33:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24902380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sanctuaria/pseuds/Sanctuaria
Summary: “I’m so sorry,” Daisy whispers. “I know you don’t feel anything, so you can’t be sad about it, but—I’m so sorry, May.”“Just because I can’t feel the emotion doesn’t mean I don’t know that I’m supposed to,” May says. “That there’s somethingmissing, that was supposed to be there. Something lost.”(A.K.A. The chat Daisy and May need to have after the events of 7x04, because you can’t tell me May’s situation with Coulson—and in general—isn’t killing Daisy inside.)
Relationships: Jemma Simmons & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Melinda May & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Phil Coulson/Melinda May
Series: Celebrating AoS Season 7 (with angst and hurt/comfort) [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1764745
Comments: 59
Kudos: 154





	The Darkest Hour (comes right before the dawn)

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. day!!! Here's a little something I wrote while waiting anxiously for 7x05 to air, because Daisy and May haven't actually had a conversation this season yet(???) and I need them to, so.
> 
> Title is from the Broadway play _Hadestown _.__

The Zephyr is quiet except for the rain pounding outside the windows, broken only by the occasional rumbling of thunder in the distance. “And—and there’s nothing you can do?”

“I’m trying, Daisy,” Simmons says, the harsh interior lighting of the Zephyr highlighting the dark circles under her eyes. “Of course I am. But I have no idea what has done this to her, much less how I would go about reversing it—”

“I’m not saying its your fault,” she says quickly. They’re tucked into one corner of medical, Agent Sousa still unconscious on the bed from the ICER bullet. Somehow it’s still the place they’re least likely to be overheard on the overcrowded plane. “I know you’re doing everything you can. She said she’s been like this since the Temple?”

Simmons nods. “She also mentioned that Izel’s world was one in which the beings there couldn’t feel emotions.”

“That has to be connected,” Daisy swallows.

“I agree it’s highly likely, but the chamber Enoch created is the most advanced healing technology we have,” Simmons shakes her head. “If that didn’t work…” She eyes Daisy. “I will keep working on it, I promise. But…don’t you think the best person to be talking to about this…is May?”

Daisy knows that look. It’s a patented Jemma-look at this point, one part pitying and one part uncomfortable truths she doesn’t think Daisy’s ready to hear. It’s the same one she gave her after she left S.H.I.E.L.D. only to come crawling back to Simmons with a bullet through her shoulder, and the same one from their time in the Lighthouse, facing Sarge. _“There was a reason you rushed off to space last year. You have a pattern. It happened after you got your powers. After Lincoln, you walked away. Everything around here reminded you of Coulson, so you left. You didn't want to face it. It doesn't do any good to keep things bottled up. All I'm saying is, if you need us, we are here.”_

“I don’t like seeing her like this,” Daisy admits softly.

Simmons purses her lips. “It is…unsettling.”

“And Coulson just… _shut himself down_ after what she said to him.” Daisy twists her hands together. “He’s never done that before, Jemma. The look on his face—”

“You need to talk to May,” Simmons says again, placing her hand on Daisy’s shoulder. “She should be in the cockpit. Let her know that we should be making our next jump soon, so we should get up in the air.”

“Jem—”

“Thanks, Daisy,” her friend says, avoiding her gaze and moving to check on Sousa in what is a clear dismissal. Stymied, Daisy is once again confronted by the semi-uncomfortable realization that the Simmons who showed up just in time with the Zephyr to save the day is not the same Simmons she last saw at the Lighthouse. Not to mention she hasn’t uttered Fitz’s name aloud in days, the rest of the team following suit despite their worried glances.

Sighing, Daisy moves off to find May as requested, passing by various other members of the team as she weaves her way through the lab and mission control—Mack and Yo-Yo sifting through more S.H.I.E.L.D. history reports, quietly holding hands across the holotable, Coulson standing perfectly still in a corner with his eyes closed and his head bowed, Deke sitting on a munitions crate, staring off into space. Daisy makes a mental note to check in with him later if there’s time—and with S.H.I.E.L.D., that’s hardly a guarantee—before making her way to the cockpit. As she suspected, her former S.O. sits calmly at the controls, watching the rain pound the windshield, the world outside dark except for the rare flashes of lightning.

“Hey,” Daisy announces her presence, lingering in the doorway. “Simmons thinks we’ll be jumping soon, she recommends we get up in the air.”

“Copy that,” the specialist says, powering up the flight systems with practiced ease. Daisy hesitates, then slips further inside and takes a seat in the empty co-pilot’s chair. May doesn’t even look at her.

“I talked with Simmons about…how you’ve been feeling,” Daisy starts. May glances at her as she pulls back the throttle, making the entire plane hum beneath them as the engines engage for vertical take-off. “And I saw—with Coulson—”

“I don’t get anything off him,” May repeats in that same colorless tone.

“I’m so sorry,” Daisy whispers. The pilot says nothing. “I know you don’t feel anything, so you can’t be sad about it, but—I’m so sorry, May.”

“Just because I can’t feel the emotion doesn’t mean I don’t know that I’m supposed to,” May says. “That there’s something _missing_ , that was supposed to be there. Something lost.”

Tears threaten to make an appearance in Daisy’s eyes so she’s silent for a minute. Coulson and May…they’ve always been there, since she first joined S.H.I.E.L.D.—a partnership, a team. Not in the quirky, adorable way of FitzSimmons, but quiet and unassuming and dependable, even before it developed into something else. And then to lose him to his deal with Ghost Rider, to have a few scant weeks of happiness in Tahiti with his death looming over them…to see him again in the face of their enemy, and to fall, betrayed, by that same enemy, still wondering with her dying breath if there could still be some shred of the man she loved inside him…

And now, to finally have some _real_ piece of him back, only to be able to feel nothing about it.

“Do you remember…the first time I did this?” Daisy asks. “After the whole thing with Hannah Hutchins, on the Bus…”

“You asked me if I minded if you kept me company,” May replies. “I didn’t say no.”

“I thought you didn’t feel anything then,” Daisy says. “I was wrong.”

No. It’s not just that May can’t feel anything about it, it’s that they finally have a third chance at _being together_ , and then the universe throws another wrench in things. With anyone else, May could have shared their emotions, at least, been loved and loved in return. Anyone but Coulson.

She probably shouldn’t be this invested in their relationship, but, hell, she is. She always has been.

May only watches her impassively, and finally Daisy can’t stand it anymore. She thrusts her hand toward her, palm up. “Can I?”

The woman blinks, then nods, carefully taking Daisy’s hand in hers. Her eyebrows draw together, her mouth pursing, and when she looks up at Daisy again it’s with pain clear in her eyes. “This is what you feel?” May asks, although the words come out as more of a gasp, wracked with sorrow. Daisy bites her lip and squeezes May’s hand, watching as her former S.O.’s eyes fill with tears. “This is what _I_ should be feeling,” May murmurs. “… _Coulson_ …He’s alive…and I can’t…I can’t…”

The crippling sense of loss mounts in Daisy’s chest as she watches her—she’s never seen May break down before, not like this. May is the one who comforts Daisy when she needs it most, the one with the walls, the unbreakable one who takes hits for the team so the rest of them don’t have to. And here Daisy is, making her experience pain she’s free from…just to feel close to her again, like in that first month after Coulson’s death? For her own selfish comfort?

“I’m sorry,” Daisy says quickly, retracting her hand and swiping her sleeve across her eyes. “I don’t—I don’t mean to make you feel things. Bad things.”

The emotion from May’s face slowly fades, becoming blank once again. “I don’t mind,” May tells her, with no trace of the tremor of before. It’s strange enough to see her with salt water on her cheeks in the first place, but even more haunting to see it without even a hint of the sensations that elicited them. “It’s nice to feel things sometimes, Daisy. I spent a large chunk of my life trying not to feel anything at all, and now that I don’t…”

“It’s not your fault,” she tells her. “It’s not your fault that you can’t feel what you’re supposed to—”

“It never even crossed my mind that it was,” May says. Lightning flashes from outside, illuminating her frown. “At the end, right before you pulled away. Guilt?”

“I know what it’s like to lose someone,” Daisy whispers. “To know that the future you envisioned with them is just…gone, in a heartbeat. The one perk of all this is that you don’t have to feel that, and here I am, making you do it, just so I can…” _Just so I can feel close to you. So I’m not alone in mourning what could have been._

“No one makes me do anything,” May tells her. She reaches for her hand again, chasing it when Daisy pulls it away further, before finally grabbing it in an iron grip. Her eyes widen at the sudden onslaught of emotions, but May takes two deep, shuddering breaths, pulling Daisy’s hand closer and placing it gently over her heart. Warmth surges in her chest for this woman—Coulson was the one who first told her she could be an agent, but May was the one who _made_ her that agent, who formed her and shaped her and put a gun in her hand and a target in front of her and told her it was okay—or at least not puny and sad—if that target was Ward. May was the one dragging her out of bed before sunrise for an hour of tai chi, the one giving her a proud smile the first time she managed to punch her in the face, the one who sat with her without a trace of fear as she first tried to control her powers.

“I love you too,” May tells her, and that’s what breaks the dam. Daisy begins crying in earnest, gulping tears that turn everything around her fuzzy, and then suddenly she’s scrunched in the pilot’s seat as well, hugging May as if her life depends on it, and May is just pulling her closer, her own tears soaking into her olive green sweater at the shoulder. Daisy cries because _this_ is what she fears she had lost. She cries for the mother she never had, and the mother she had found—the one who is teacher, and mentor, and friend besides.

“I can’t lose you,” Daisy mumbles into her neck. “I feel like I am, even if you’re still here, and I don’t know what to do with it. You mean everything to me too.”

“I know,” May tells her, and Daisy feels her free hand sweep softly through her hair. May’s heart beats steadily under her fingertips. “Listen to me, Daisy. You knew I loved you even though I never said it. So know that I will always love you even when I can’t feel it.” Daisy makes a choked sound deep in her throat. “Got it?”

“Yes,” Daisy breathes.

“You ever need me, you find me, you take my hand, you make me remember,” May says, warm and solid in Daisy’s arms. “Because as long as I am on this Earth, I will always be here for you.”

“What about out in space?” Daisy manages as she pulls away slightly, though her hand remains held fast in May’s. “‘Cause I’ve heard that happens sometimes at S.H.I.E.L.D.”

The amused, exasperated look is all typical-May, but the slight smile underneath it reflects the relief flooding through her. “If we have to go to space again, I’m retiring.”

“You said that last year,” Daisy reminds her with a watery laugh. “And two years before that.”

“ _Actually_ retiring.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Daisy teases. “And May…I know you can feel it and everything, but I love you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it! Any and all feedback appreciated, and screams about the events of 7x05 as well if you're reading this after it airs ;)


End file.
